When I was growing up in the Mediterranean, sometimes it seemed like picnics in the countryside were all my family ever did. From daylong trips to epic Roman ruins in the Lebanese hills, or days at the beach where Venus was rumored to have been born in Cyprus, or simple afternoon hikes to the wooden bridge by our farm in Tuscany, we never left the house without an ample supply of simple, finger-friendly food, mostly put together by my mother, to enjoy at whatever gorgeous destination we were headed. Inspired by those childhood romps into the deeply perfumed Mediterranean maquis, Read more…

I call it a “beggar’s purse”: a crepe with cream cheese and smoked salmon inside, tied with a purse of scallion heads, topped with red caviar. The caviar brings out a little Russian flair. Everything I do is a bit of this, and a bit of that; I don’t really copy anything. I was trying to think of something Eastern European that would work in a basket. It’s a crepe, and it’s wrapped, so it can be held on ice, and you can keep them in the cooler. Potato salad is always good for a picnic. The salmon and the cream cheese are eaten raw, so you don’t have to cook them. And the crepe is just a thin pancake, so it’s doable. Read more…

Well, the temperature is expected to top 80 degrees on Wednesday, with partly cloudy skies and a caressing breeze: not a bad birthday present for our nation, which will be turning 236 years old. What better way to celebrate than with that pastoral American tradition: a picnic. We asked a few of our city’s most talented chefs to offer a culinary prescription for a successful and portable Fourth of July meal. Bring these baskets down to your local park, garden or recently rezoned waterfront esplanade and enjoy a patriotic chow-down. We’ll kick things off with Marcus Samuelsson, the chef and owner of the soul-food mecca Red Rooster Harlem. Look for more entries this week. Share your own homemade baskets in the comments. And as our Revolutionary allies might put it, bon appétit!

Marcus Samuelsson, Red Rooster Harlem
The most important thing to remember when you’re making a picnic basket is to choose foods that are sturdy and can be eaten both warm and cold. I always think about what will hold up well, then go by what’s in season. For example, I start with sangria, because it’s of the season Read more…

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